Standards in Public Life Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Standards in Public Life

Sarah Jones Excerpts
Tuesday 5th July 2022

(2 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Michael Ellis Portrait Michael Ellis
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If the right hon. Gentleman is asking me about machinery-of-Government processes and changes, that is not within my area of responsibility, but he knows what has been said about that. There is work going on all the time to look at machinery of Government and no doubt that will continue.

Sarah Jones Portrait Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
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We now seem to be in a position where No. 10 have just admitted that the Prime Minister was told about the upheld complaint, but he forgot. Has the Minister ever found himself in a position where he did not immediately recall being told of an upheld complaint of sexual harassment against a fellow Minister?

Michael Ellis Portrait Michael Ellis
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I would ask the hon. Lady to understand that a Prime Minister has myriad urgent and pressing responsibilities. He may be told literally hundreds of things in any one day. The reality of the matter is that I cannot speak exactly to somebody else’s mind, whoever that person may be. But if she says to the House that she has never forgotten anything, or asks whether I have ever forgotten or misremembered something, I do not accept that.